


holding on for dear life

by groundopenwide



Series: holding on for dear life [1]
Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, M/M, Semi-Public Sex, Unrequited Love, Wild World Tour, boys refusing to communicate and just generally being dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22637593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundopenwide/pseuds/groundopenwide
Summary: Sleep with Danis rather high up on the list of things Charlie wants to do but definitely shouldn’t. It might even take the top spot, actually.He’s a fucking idiot, though, so he goes ahead and does it anyway.
Relationships: Charlie Barnes/Dan Smith, Kyle Simmons/Dan Smith (one-sided)
Series: holding on for dear life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2152383
Comments: 14
Kudos: 46





	holding on for dear life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feelingsrising](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelingsrising/gifts).



> this is officially the most niche thing i have ever written and it turned out to be almost 16,000 damn words. a) what is happening? b) i can't believe it's finally done!! talk about a labor of love.
> 
> this fic is entirely [nadine's](http://softbrobarnes.tumblr.com) fault. back in december when she found out i had become neck-deep in this fandom, she popped into my messages and basically was like "ok but consider this: charlie/dan." a day later i was SOLD. did i scroll back three years on dan's instagram just for photographic inspo while writing this? um, absolutely. shoutout to [these](https://groundopenwide.tumblr.com/post/190320624498/bastillearchive-bastilledan-bozeman-skies) [wild world](https://groundopenwide.tumblr.com/post/190333755947/spooky-stille-from-bastilledans-instagram-story) [era](https://groundopenwide.tumblr.com/post/190292982408/rastamooni-dan-smith-charlie-barnes-coachella) [shenanigans](https://groundopenwide.tumblr.com/post/190200282481/currentsnakes-idk-if-someone-already-pointed-out) for straight up ruining my life.
> 
> here's hoping someone else out there is crazy enough to enjoy this. please drop a comment if you do! i'm also on [tumblr](http://groundopenwide.tumblr.com) if you want to come yell at me about charlie/dan afterwards.
> 
> also, i stole the title from "comfort of strangers." obviously. happy reading ♥

_Sleep with Dan_ is rather high up on the list of things Charlie wants to do but definitely shouldn’t. It might even take the top spot, actually. 

He’s a fucking idiot, though, so he goes ahead and does it anyway. 

Which is a mistake. A big one.

Because Charlie never considered how devastating it would be to know these details firsthand: Dan’s hair, even softer than he imagined, gripped between his fingers. Dan’s blue eyes gazing up from where he’s knelt on the ground, pupils blown and dark eyelashes staining his cheeks. The round, wet curve of his mouth. His clever musician’s hands squeezing the backs of Charlie’s thighs. The quiet, garbled moan that escapes him as he sucks Charlie off, his throat fluttering around Charlie’s cock.

How’d they even end up here? The adrenaline and the alcohol have turned the whole night into a blur, if Charlie’s honest. They played a show—the final one for this leg of the tour—and then there was a celebratory round of drinks with the rest of the band, followed by a second, a third, a fourth. Will kept buying them all shots, and Charlie downed every single one that got passed his way, until the world went foggy and he had to hang off an equally drunk Dan just to stay upright.

And then, between one blink and the next, Dan had followed Charlie back to his hotel room and was tugging at Charlie’s belt before they’d even made it all the way through the door.

Charlie’s liquor-soaked brain is pretty certain he’s stumbled into some weird, wonderful alternate universe. Not that he’s complaining.

“Dan,” Charlie croaks, “I’m gonna—”

Dan doesn’t let up—instead, he flicks his tongue over the head of Charlie’s cock in the most deliciously wicked way, and just like that, Charlie is coming. He’s coming inside Dan’s mouth, holy shit, and Dan is swallowing it all like a fucking champ. He sucks until Charlie’s cock goes soft, then lets it slip out of his mouth with a quiet pop. 

Charlie’s knees have turned to jelly, but he somehow manages to stay upright. He tugs insistently at Dan’s shoulders to get him to stand, and then they’re not so much kissing as they are breathing the same air, the full length of Dan’s body pressed flush against his. 

Dan wedges a thigh between Charlie’s legs and ruts against him for a few frenzied seconds. Charlie can feel the exact moment he comes, his hands squeezing tight around Charlie’s biceps and his mouth gasping out a quiet, gut-puncturing, “ _oh._ ”

They stay like that for only a minute, maybe less, as they both catch their breath, the weight of Dan’s body keeping Charlie pinned against the wall. Then Dan seems to come back to himself. He lets go of Charlie’s arms and moves back, smoothing down the front of his wrinkled t-shirt as he goes. 

“I should,” he starts.

He’s going to leave, Charlie realizes. Which—alright, so that’s how this is going to go. Cool.

Without the heat of Dan’s body caging him in, Charlie feels cold. Cold, drunk, and unbelievably stupid _._ He pushes down a wave of nausea and tucks his spent cock back into his pants, trying desperately not to stare at the wet spot on the front of Dan’s trousers. When Dan wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, Charlie tries even harder not to think about how that’s his come Dan’s wiping away, about how Dan’s swollen lips and flushed cheeks are all his doing.

Dan runs a hand through his messy hair (sex hair, Charlie’s brain supplies helpfully) and shoots him an awkward, lopsided smile. “So. I—I’ll see you.”

“Yeah,” Charlie echoes.

With that, Dan slips out the door.

*

In the sobering light of his hangover the next morning, Charlie can admit the real reason he’s a fucking idiot: 

He went and slept with Dan when it’s really, incredibly obvious that Dan is (and always has been) arse-over-tits in love with Kyle. Obvious to everyone except Kyle, of course.

When Charlie first joined the band, he just assumed the two of them were dating. They were so in sync with one another, banging the same drum and playing their synths side by side every night. It was like they had their own unspoken language, sharing silent looks and too-bright smiles across rooms and stages all over the world.

Then Kyle introduced Charlie to his girlfriend. 

And Charlie thought, oh, okay, that quite sucks for Dan, doesn’t it? Then went on with his life.

But now Charlie knows what the inside of Dan’s mouth tastes like. He knows what Dan’s lips look like wrapped around his cock. Normally, he would try not to jump to conclusions, but in this case he’s also 99.9% certain that he only knows these things because when Kyle left the bar last night to go call his girlfriend, Charlie just so happened to be the (single, not totally straight) person standing closest to Dan’s side.

Charlie receives unnecessary confirmation of this fact when he drags himself onto the tour bus the next morning to find Kyle and Dan already there, cuddled up on the sofa in the front lounge with a pair of in-ear headphones shared between them. 

Kyle looks up from the laptop propped on his outstretched legs and offers Charlie a smile. “Alright, mate?”

“Head’s killing me, but I’m alive,” says Charlie. 

He tries to catch Dan’s eye, but Dan is very pointedly watching the computer screen and acting as though he’s not even there. He looks as wrecked as Charlie feels, with deep purple circles under his eyes and a faint layer of sweat gleaming on his forehead.

“Watching anything good?” Charlie asks after a moment, because he is nothing if not a mature, civil human being.

“Twin Peaks,” Kyle says, rolling his eyes.

This is the part where Charlie’s supposed to laugh as if some dumb television show from the 90s explains Dan’s standoffish behavior. So he does, sharing a conspiratorial smile with Kyle that he doesn’t really feel before slinking back toward the bunks. He needs a fucking nap.

*

Charlie doesn’t mean to let it happen again. Really, he doesn’t. 

They have almost a full two weeks off before the start of the North American leg of tour, and by the time they’ve made it to the venue in Toronto, he’s almost managed to convince himself the first time was nothing more than a drunken fever dream. 

Dan is bouncing off the walls during soundcheck. He spins round and round onstage and takes his dumb videos for Instagram, half of which are, of course, just him badgering Kyle from the opposite side of his synth. Kyle this, Kyle that. 

Charlie watches the two of them and thinks about Dan on his knees. About Dan’s lips, still shiny with spit as he bolted out of Charlie’s hotel room like he couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Kyle, where are we?” Dan’s asking.

“Toronto!” 

Kyle waggles his eyebrows for the camera while Woody hits a little _badum-tsss_ on his drum set. The three of them all start laughing like it’s the funniest thing ever. From across the stage, Will shoots Charlie a look that says _idiots, the lot of them,_ and Charlie manages to roll his eyes half-heartedly in response.

Then, just as quickly as he started, Kyle stops laughing. His eyes grow comically wide.

“What are you doing here?” he blurts.

The rest of them turn around to see what the commotion is.

It’s Kyle’s girlfriend. Here. In Toronto. 

She gives them all a shy little wave right before she’s overrun by Kyle, who picks her up and spins her around like they’re in a fucking rom-com or something. They’re both smiling and laughing and clinging to each other, and Kyle is babbling at a thousand words per minute, blurting things like _how_ and _what_ and _I can’t believe it!_

It’s sickeningly adorable and also completely unexpected. 

Charlie cuts his eyes toward Dan without even consciously deciding to do so. He looks like he wants to bury himself underground and stay there for the next century, his forehead pinched and a too-tight smile plastered across his face.

Then he turns his head and catches Charlie looking at him. They stare at each other for a long few seconds, Dan’s smile faltering. The tension between them pulls taught like a rubber band, stretching across the stage until it threatens to snap.

“I’m guessing soundcheck’s over then?” Woody asks.

Charlie and Dan look away from each other at the same time. Kyle offers a sheepish, “sorry, lads,” before he grabs his girlfriend’s hand and drags her off, rambling about something Charlie can’t decipher as they go.

The rest of them disperse as well. Charlie ends up alone in the green room to finish getting ready, and he’s halfway through tucking his shirt into his trousers when Dan walks in. They both freeze upon noticing each other, Charlie’s hand stuck in his waistband. 

“Sorry. Didn’t know anyone was here,” Dan says.

Charlie clears his throat and looks down to finish tucking in his shirt. 

“No worries,” he says. “You ready for the show?”

“Yeah. I suppose. You?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

In the silence that follows, the air between them grows heavy, electric with something neither of them wants to name. Dan crosses the room in a series of slow strides, not stopping until he’s right up in Charlie’s personal space, their toes practically touching.

Dan reaches out and grazes the knuckle of his index finger against Charlie’s collar. 

“I like this shirt,” he says.

“Take it off of me,” Charlie tells him.

They collide in an explosion of kinetic energy. Charlie drags Dan’s face down to kiss him while Dan yanks Charlie’s shirttails out of his trousers. There’s a table a few meters away, and Dan pushes Charlie against it, pinning him there with his hips as he makes quick work of the buttons on both their trousers. 

It’s rough and frantic. Dan spits into his palm before grabbing a hold of both their cocks, and the friction is so good that Charlie’s breath gets caught in his lungs. He buries his moan in Dan’s shoulder and fucks up into his fist. The edge of the table digs into his lower back, but he barely notices, too dazed by each tug of Dan’s fingers along his cock. 

He reaches a hand down to join Dan’s, and they get each other off like that, fingers and cocks slip-sliding against one another.

“Fuck,” Dan gasps.

He comes all over their twined fingers, and Charlie follows suit mere seconds later, spilling into Dan’s fist and the space between them. 

His shirt is an absolute disaster, half-unbuttoned and covered in spunk. Charlie sighs and, once he’s regained some energy, shrugs out of it the rest of the way. He balls up the fabric and uses it to wipe the come off Dan’s fingers and then his own.

“Sorry,” Dan says.

No, you’re not, Charlie thinks. He shoves the shirt against Dan’s chest and gives him the out he’s no doubt looking for. “You owe me a clean shirt.”

“Alright,” Dan says, and goes to find one.

*

A couple of nights later, they’re all on the tour bus having a chill night in after the show. They’re somewhere on the east coast of the US; Charlie’s already losing track, all of the cities starting to blend together into one. 

Kyle’s girlfriend is still with them, and Dan’s being all weird and standoffish as if he can pretend that he never wanked Charlie off in the green room of a Canadian hockey arena, and Charlie is annoyed and confused and a hundred other things he shouldn’t be, given the fact that he’s currently touring the world and playing his guitar for thousands of people each night. 

Fuck Dan. Fuck him and his stupid crush on Kyle and his stupid, too-blue eyes that Charlie could drown in if he isn’t careful.

When the bottle of Jack they’re passing around makes it to him, Charlie drinks a little more than he should, some of it spilling out the corner of his mouth. 

Woody laughs. “Classy, mate.”

“Bugger off,” Charlie tells him sullenly.

“Yikes, what’s crawled up your arse and died?” Kyle asks.

He’s sitting in the booth that serves as their bus’s kitchen table, his girlfriend tucked up against him. Will sits on the other side of the table, Woody and Charlie are sharing the built-in sofa across from them, and Dan’s as far away as he can get, sitting on the kitchen counter with his legs dangling over the side.

Charlie wants to push him off of it and tell him to stop being such a fucking drama queen, but that might be a little hypocritical, so instead he just shrugs at Kyle and says, “Nothing, sorry. Just tired.”

“We’ve got a long couple of months ahead of us.” Woody claps him on the shoulder. “You’d better catch your second wind.”

“Working on it,” Charlie says.

Woody grins reassuringly and takes the bottle from him, starting in on some story about a fan he met at last night’s show. Charlie tunes him out and looks at Dan, because apparently that’s all he knows how to do lately. Dan is, of course, watching Kyle and his girlfriend. His expression is one of pure fucking misery, and Charlie wonders, not for the first time, how Kyle could really be so dense as not to notice.

They don’t last much longer, all of them wandering off to their bunks a little after midnight. Charlie’s been laying there for a half hour, maybe less, still a little pissed off and too wired to sleep, when he hears the soft pad of footsteps on the carpet. Woody’s already snoring above him, Will’s making that clicking noise in his throat that he always does when he’s sleeping, and Kyle and his girlfriend are surprisingly quiet, so that leaves only one other person as the culprit.

Sure enough, Dan’s face appears in the sliver of space between the wall and the privacy curtain of Charlie’s bunk.

“Still up?” he whispers.

“Obviously,” Charlie says back.

Seconds later, he’s got a bunk full of Dan. It happens so fast that Charlie doesn’t even have time to scoot over, so he ends up with Dan on top of him, their limbs a tangled mess and Dan’s breath hot against his face.

“What the fuck,” Charlie whispers.

He almost forgets why he was angry to begin with when Dan immediately slips a hand under his shirt and sucks his earlobe into his mouth. Dan’s fingers are freezing, and Charlie shudders beneath him, his stomach muscles contracting at the touch. 

“Dan—” he starts.

He’s silenced by Dan’s mouth against his own, tongue insistent as it dips into his mouth. Charlie kisses him back for a moment (he can’t not), the sound of their mouths sliding against one another echoing inside the bunk. Dan tastes like whiskey, and Charlie licks the liquor from his lips until they’re both heaving for breath.

When they separate for air, Charlie tries again. “Dan.”

Dan blinks down at him and waits, his eyes twinkling in the dark. 

“If we’re gonna do this,” Charlie says, quieter, “you can’t fucking ignore me afterwards.”

Dan’s eyebrows draw together. 

“Okay,” he says. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Charlie replies, a reflex. “I just—we’re mates. Right?”

“Yeah. Of course. I…” Dan shifts up onto his hands like he’s going to pull away. “Maybe I should—”

Charlie winds a hand in the front of his shirt to hold him place. “What, you crawl into my bunk, make a fuss, and then you aren’t even going to wank me off? That’s a little rude, don’t you think?”

For a long moment, Dan doesn’t say anything. Charlie wonders if he’s been too brash, if his trying to talk about this—thing—between them has made Dan reconsider.

But then Dan reaches down between them to cup him through his joggers, and Charlie chokes on his words.

“Is that what you want? A wank?” Dan asks in a low voice.

Charlie can’t seem to get his voice to work, not with Dan’s hand on him. Thankfully, Dan takes his silence as confirmation. He moves his hand inside Charlie’s joggers and doesn’t even bother with teasing, just wraps his fingers around Charlie’s cock and strokes him until his toes start to curl.

“Fuck,” Charlie moans. “Fuck, fuck—”

“You’ll wake the others,” whispers Dan, the little shit, right as he twists his wrist in a particularly wonderful way. He puts his free hand flat over Charlie’s mouth to keep him quiet, and Charlie comes so hard he swears he can’t feel his legs once he’s done.

“Kinky,” Dan tells him afterwards.

Charlie opens his mouth to tell him off, as well as possibly offer to return the favor, but Dan slips out of the bunk before he can, leaving Charlie blissed-out and slightly winded in his wake.

*

Kyle’s girlfriend is with them for two more weeks. Over the course of those two weeks, Dan corners Charlie three more times. Each time, Charlie thinks about saying no, but then Dan kisses him like he’s starving for it, and Charlie stops thinking after that. 

After awhile it stops surprising him, the way Dan always seems to know when he’s alone. He’s even begun to anticipate it, going to bed each night with a warm curl in his belly and the exhilarating thought of _maybe._ Maybe tomorrow Dan will find him and it’ll happen again. Maybe. 

It’s bad, how much he thinks about Dan these days, about his flushed cheeks and the soft sound he makes when he comes. Charlie can’t afford to be having such thoughts—he really, really can’t. Dan’s just using him as a distraction, a warm body, and it doesn’t mean anything, what they’re doing. 

They’re mates. Mates who shag sometimes.

Which is why, once Kyle’s girlfriend finally leaves, Charlie expects things between Dan and himself to—not end, necessarily, but at least die down a little. Now that Kyle isn’t waving his relationship in their faces—albeit unintentionally—Dan can have a moment to breathe. He won’t need Charlie there to…

Well, he won’t need Charlie there, period.

*

Their next stop is Las Vegas, which is far enough that they’ve got to drive overnight to get there. Charlie hates sleeping on the tour bus. American motorways are absolute shit, and all of the bumps and potholes make it impossible for him to get any rest. Woody snoring like a fucking chainsaw doesn’t help matters.

That means Charlie’s wide awake when they stop for petrol at 2 AM. He gives up on pretending to sleep and slips out of his bunk to stretch his legs. Outside, the air is cool in that way only desert air gets at night, dry and sharp enough to cut through his jumper. He rounds the tour bus and ends up on the far side of it, facing away from the truck stop. He tucks his hands into his armpits and stares out at the dark, flat expanse of land in front of him. 

He’s so zoned out that he almost misses the sound of someone coming to stand beside him.

“Thought I was the insomniac,” Dan says.

He’s all dulled at the edges, his appearance nighttime-soft, glasses on and hood pulled up over his hair. Charlie wants to reach out and touch, to feel the cotton of his jumper beneath his fingers. He’s not sure that’s allowed, though, so he swallows the urge and just shrugs.

“Bus nights are the worst,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dan agrees.

They fall into a silence that isn’t entirely comfortable. A million questions sit on the tip of Charlie’s tongue: is this thing between them over? What does Dan really want from him? Why can’t he get Dan out of his fucking head?

His tangled thoughts fall away when Dan moves toward him, curling his hands in the shoulders of Charlie’s jumper and pushing him up against the side of the tour bus. The breath whooshes out of Charlie’s lungs from the unexpected force of it. He blinks up at Dan’s face, which is suddenly so close that Charlie can see the faint smudges of freckles across the bridge of his nose. 

“What—”

Dan places his index finger against Charlie’s lips, and the rest of the question dies in his throat.

“We have to be quiet,” Dan murmurs.

And Charlie—Charlie is weak, so he nods, then sucks the tip of Dan’s finger into his mouth.

Dan’s eyes go hooded. 

“Charlie,” he says, low and strangled.

The sound of his name on Dan’s lips hits Charlie like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. They fall together in a kiss that’s more teeth than lips, Dan pressing Charlie hard against the side of the bus. The metal is cold and slippery against Charlie’s back. He thinks, a bit hysterically, that he wants Dan to flatten him against it until they’ve merged into one, until they can’t tell where the metal ends and either of them begins.

Maybe he voices the thought out loud, because Dan uses his grip on Charlie’s shoulders to turn him around so that his chest is flush against the side of the bus. He drapes himself over Charlie’s back and bites none too gently at the nape of his neck, hands circling his waist to get his joggers pulled down. 

Charlie feels feverish. He groans and turns his head sideways to press his overheated cheek against the cool metal. Dan shushes him, moving his mouth to the stubble along Charlie’s jaw as he finally wraps a firm hand around his cock.

It’s as good as it always is, Dan’s expert fingers twisting and pulling in the way he now knows drives Charlie mad. Every stroke sets Charlie on edge. He’s so consumed by the sensation that the sudden absence of Dan’s hand a few seconds later is like ice water poured over his head, and he gasps at the loss.

“Wanna try something,” Dan soothes. 

Charlie hears the rustle of clothes, and then Dan is back, caging Charlie in with his body heat. His cock nudges against Charlie’s thighs, skin on skin, and Charlie’s whole body turns to putty. 

“Fuck,” he groans.

Dan jerks his hips forward like he can’t help himself. “Here, just—”

His thumb brushes Charlie’s lower lip. Charlie opens immediately, taking as many of Dan’s fingers into his mouth as he can and sucking at them like he’s trying to memorize every groove of Dan’s skin. 

“Christ,” Dan whispers. “Put your legs together.” 

Charlie obeys. He feels empty when Dan’s fingers leave his mouth, but the emptiness fades when the blunt head of Dan’s cock, slick with Charlie’s own spit, presses in between the line of his thighs. It’s too much and not enough, Dan fucking not quite into him, and all Charlie can think about is how it would feel to really have Dan inside of him, hot and full and gutwrenching. 

But this isn’t the time, nor the place for that (and Charlie doubts it ever will be). So he slams his palms against the side of the tour bus for purchase and lets Dan fuck his thighs with abandon, until they’re both dripping with sweat and trembling. 

Charlie drops a hand to his own cock, which is rock hard against his belly, and comes in just a few short tugs. Dan sets his teeth against the side of Charlie’s neck and follows shortly after, his come slick against the backs of Charlie’s thighs.

The energy seeps out of Charlie, his body going slack against the side of the bus. He presses his forehead to the metal and closes his eyes. 

“You’re a fucking vampire,” he croaks.

Dan kisses the love bite on his neck in apology, his nose grazing Charlie’s hairline. It’s a sweet gesture, one that Charlie isn’t expecting in the slightest, not after the crazy, filthy stunt they’ve just pulled. His heart flip-flops in his chest.

“Think you’ll be able to sleep now?” Dan asks.

Charlie exhales and forces himself to straighten under Dan’s weight, nudging the other man off of him with an elbow. “Yeah, just as soon as I get all of your jizz cleaned off my legs.”

He tugs his pants and joggers back up, wincing when the fabric sticks to his skin. It’s absolutely disgusting, but he can’t exactly climb back onto the bus half-naked, so he’s got no other choice.

Dan’s still there when Charlie finishes and turns around, which is—surprising, to say the least.

“Oh,” Charlie says, before he can stop himself.

“What?”

You’re driving me mad, Charlie thinks. Why are you doing this? Why? 

“Nothing,” he says aloud. “Just—really need a shower.”

*

After Vegas, it’s onto California, where everything is too bright and too hot and Dan won’t stop fucking looking at him. Every time Charlie turns his head, Dan’s eyes are waiting. Something has shifted between them, but hope is a fickle thing, so Charlie is trying quite hard not to think too much about it—which, of course, proves close to impossible with the memory of Dan’s fingers in his mouth still fresh in his mind.

(And if, more nights than not, he’s taken to wanking himself off to that very memory—so what? No one has to know). 

Coachella is a welcome distraction from the sorry mess Charlie’s life has become. The palm trees, the massive ferris wheel, the desert mountains backlit by the pinkpurpleorange of the setting sun—and they’re going to play a show in the middle of it all. Charlie feels like he’s walking through a dreamscape. He doesn’t know what he ever did to warrant ending up here, doing what he loves most at one of the biggest festivals in the world.

He’s having a bit of a moment right before they’re supposed to go on, gazing out at the crowd through a crack in the stage set and trying to calm his rising heart rate, when Dan shows up beside him.

“Crazy, innit?”

Charlie turns to look at him. “I might be sick.” 

Dan grins. “Nah, you’ll be fine.”

“How’d you handle this the first time?”

“I didn’t, really. Think I blacked out for most of it.”

A stage hand gestures at them with their one minute cue, and Charlie’s heart leaps up into his throat. In a sudden fit of raw, adrenaline-fueled honesty, he meets Dan’s eyes and says, “thank you. For letting me do this with you lot, I mean. It’s—it’s the best fucking thing ever.”

“Hey, no need for thanks, mate.” Dan puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “You make us better.” 

The compliment makes Charlie’s stomach do some sort of acrobatic move that involves all sorts of twisting and flipping. He doesn’t know how to reply. What he really wants to do is pull Dan in and kiss him senseless, but that’s not how this works, so when the intro music kicks in and Dan smiles at him one last time before moving away to take his mark, Charlie lets him go.

The show is pure fucking magic. Charlie can feel every drop of sweat on his skin and the pulse of his blood through every inch of his body, and it’s incredible. He catches Dan’s eye at one point, and Dan grins at him, wild and carefree, as if he knows exactly what Charlie is thinking. Told you so, his smile says, and Charlie smiles back. 

He feels like he’s king of the fucking world.

After their set, he’s still vibrating out of his skin. Someone presses a pint into his hand almost as soon as they’ve run offstage, and he takes it, feeling giddy. The others are all gathered around, toasting to a show well done. Charlie takes it in, his smile threatening to split his face in two. 

These are his people. His family. How lucky is he?

They spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the festival from act to act. Before Charlie knows it, darkness has fallen and he’s a little—well, maybe a lot—drunk. But he’s allowed to have fun, alright? He’s at Coachella _,_ and that’s fucking Beyonce onstage in front of him, live and in the flesh. This is the best day of his life.

And Dan has been attached to his hip for all of it—not that Charlie’s complaining. It’s probably just the booze talking, but being with Dan today has felt like it used to, before they started this whole thing: Fun. Easy.

Dan throws an arm around Charlie’s shoulders and leans in close to shout over the music. 

“That’s Beyonce. Like, it’s really her.”

“Yeah, mate,” Charlie shouts back. “It’s fucking Beyonce!”

Dan smiles wide at him under the flashing lights. The glint of his teeth makes Charlie’s liquor-full belly swoop dangerously, and when Dan flicks his tongue out to wet his lips, it’s like a lightning bolt to Charlie’s hazy, drunken thoughts. Suddenly, all he can think about is licking up the sweat droplets at Dan’s temple, and he’s had enough to drink that doing so doesn’t seem like that terrible of an idea.

Perhaps Dan is thinking the same thing, because when he catches Charlie staring, the smile slips from his face and his eyes go dark. The crowd is still pressed tight around them, the music blaring, but just like that, Charlie doesn’t care about any of it.

“D’you want—” Charlie starts.

“Yeah,” Dan says, before he can even finish forming the question.

Charlie grabs onto his wrist. Before they can slip away, though, Woody yells, “Wait, where the fuck are you going?” 

“Dan’s gonna be sick,” Charlie yells back. “Too much to drink.”

“Christ, the set’s just started.”

“Sorry,” Dan says. “We’ll meet you afterwards.”

They don’t wait for Woody’s response. Charlie pulls Dan along behind him, and together they shove through the throngs of people until they’re far from the musical acts and any prying eyes. Once they’re free of the crowd, Charlie wastes no time in dragging Dan behind a nearby camper van so he can kiss a line up his neck.

“Fuck you,” Dan says, but he tips his head back and grabs onto Charlie’s waist, so he must not be that upset. “Why do I have to be the one puking my guts out?”

“Let’s stop talking about puke now,” Charlie says, then drops to his knees and tugs at Dan’s belt. 

The dirt is hard and unforgiving beneath him. It’s dark as shit in this little corner they’ve found, but still, anyone who decides to stumble around the side of the camper will see them. Charlie can’t bring himself to mind, not when he finally gets Dan’s trousers and pants down enough to get at his cock.

He licks a tentative stripe up the shaft, then takes the head into his mouth, Dan’s hips bucking when he does. 

“Oh, god,” Dan moans, hands fisted at his sides.

Charlie slides off long enough to say, “you can—”

He reaches out for one of Dan’s hands and uncurls it, placing it on the back of his own head. Dan stares down at him, eyes wide and mouth ajar, and Charlie just quirks a little smile at him before he goes back to sucking.

Dan’s fingers on his scalp feel fucking amazing _._ At first, they offer just enough pressure to keep Charlie in place, but their grip tightens as he starts up a rhythm. Soon, he’s bobbing up and down on Dan’s cock, and Dan is making all sorts of obscene sounds above him, his hips jerking up to meet Charlie’s mouth.

Dan tugs half-heartedly at Charlie’s hair. His voice has all but dropped an octave when he says, “I’m—”

Charlie replaces his mouth with his hand. Seconds later, Dan is coming, his whole body slumping against the van behind him. Charlie strokes him through it, not stopping until Dan bats his hand away from his over-sensitive skin.

Charlie wipes his hand against the grass to get the come off his fingers. He looks up to find Dan watching as he does so, eyes at half-mast.

“I don’t swallow, sorry,” Charlie tells him.

The comment makes Dan laugh. “Does it look like I care,” he says back. “Just—just get up here.”

Charlie obeys and climbs to his feet. His knees twinge in protest, but he forgets about the discomfort when Dan kisses him. It must be a bit disgusting, chasing the taste of his own cock from Charlie’s mouth, yet Dan does it anyway, biting at Charlie’s lips until they’re both out of breath.

“I can,” Dan starts, reaching for Charlie’s flies.

“Nah, I’m good.” Charlie drops his head against Dan’s shoulder. He should pull away, but Dan is warm and solid against him, and it feels so, so nice. “Y’know, I’m quite drunk.”

Dan’s arms circle his shoulders, his fingers smoothing up and down the bumps of Charlie’s spine.

“Well, even drunk, you give a bloody amazing blowjob,” Dan says into his ear.

“Good. Couldn’t’ve missed Beyonce for anything less.”

“We’ll go see her some other time. Just you and me.”

Charlie likes that plan. He likes it a lot. 

*

They’re stuck in LA for five days between Coachella weekends with nothing on their schedule except one show and a TV appearance. That means Charlie gets to sleep on a real mattress and drink as much overpriced coffee as he wants and generally just be a lazy piece of shit, and it’s absolute bliss.

On Thursday, their last free morning before they have to head back out to the desert, he’s having a lie in and dicking around on his phone when someone knocks on the door of his hotel room. He drags himself out of bed to answer it and finds Dan standing on the other side, baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. Charlie startles a little at the sight of him. 

“I was sleeping,” he greets, just to be contrary.

“Hello to you, too,” Dan says, the corners of his mouth edging up into a smile. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

They haven’t spoken much since their drunken shag last weekend. Not in a _we’re avoiding each other_ kind of way, though, more like a _this is the first real break we’ve had in ages so we’re both taking advantage of it_ kind of way. 

Charlie thought it’d be weirder the morning after, but they’d all gone out for a hungover breakfast together, and Dan had just smiled at him from behind his sunglasses when Woody ribbed them for missing most of Beyonce’s set. Just like that, everything was back to normal. As normal as things are these days, anyway.

Now Dan slips past him and sits down on the edge of the bed. He’s dressed for a run, in shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. His bare calves, all wiry muscle and dark hair, are such an unexpected sight that they make Charlie’s throat run dry.

“What’re you doing today?” Dan asks.

“Had a whole lot of nothing planned. Why?”

“I was gonna check out Runyon. You should come.”

Charlie looks down at his pyjama pants, then back up at Dan. “Not sure I’m running buddy material.”

For some reason, the statement only makes Dan smile wider. “I’m not asking you to join me for a marathon. Just a bit of a...light jog.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Dan laughs, and the sound makes something squirm inside Charlie’s chest. 

“I’ll buy you a coffee afterwards,” Dan offers.

“Now you’re just playing dirty.”

“No more so than usual.”

Charlie clears his throat. Has the room gotten warmer, or is it just him? 

“Fine. Just don’t get mad when I’m whining of a side stitch after the first kilometer.”

True to his word, though, Dan is patient and doesn’t make Charlie sprint to keep up with him. They end up jogging for only the first bit of their hike, then slowing to a walk as the trail grows steeper, thank fucking god. 

Charlie’s only slightly out of breath when they reach the top. It’s a warm, breezy day, and the smog isn’t too bad; they can see most of the valley through the faint haze. It’s actually sort of cool.

“Alright, so that wasn’t completely awful,” Charlie says.

Dan turns toward him, raising a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. His smile is only mildly smug. “Wicked, right?”

“Eh, it’s not bad.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Yeah.”

Dan gives his shoulder a small shove. “Can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

“To be fair, you usually don’t.”

Maybe some of Charlie’s residual confusion seeps through the words, because Dan’s expression turns serious. His eyebrows draw together, and his voice wavers a bit, uncertain, around his next words.

“I like—this. I like hanging out with you. Is that so crazy?”

Charlie feels a bit like he’s been run over by a bus. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t—that. 

He trying not to read too much into it, but his heart and his brain are two opposing forces, and he wants—well, he doesn’t know he wants. Up to this point, all he wanted was for Dan to be at least a little bit honest with him. To give him some sort of answer as to what this thing between them has turned into and what it all means. 

Now he has that, and he doesn’t really know what to do with it.

Dan’s still watching him, clearly waiting for him to say something. Charlie draws in a deep breath.

“Not crazy. Not at all,” he says.

Dan stays quiet for so long that Charlie nearly starts to fidget. Then, before he can really process it, Dan leans across the space between them and presses their lips together. 

This isn’t like their other kisses. It isn’t desperate and drenched in secrecy. Instead, it’s—simple. A soft hello _._ Charlie’s almost embarrassed by how fast he sinks into it, sighing a little as Dan cups the back of his head with his free hand.

“There are people,” Charlie says afterwards. “And you’re all sweaty.”

Dan keeps his fingers pressed against Charlie’s scalp and bumps their noses together. When he smiles, Charlie can feel it against his own mouth. “You like it.”

And Charlie can’t even deny it, because yeah, he does. He likes Dan all carefree like this, his freckled skin glowing under the LA sun. He likes the stupid way Dan rolls his trousers. He likes Dan’s shit dancing and unfiltered enthusiasm, the way he navigates a stage like he was born to do it. He likes Dan’s boyish smile, and his too-blue eyes, and his calloused hands. He likes everything about Dan—likes it all too much. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’s so fucked.

*

The second time around, there’s an energy hanging over their Coachella set that wasn’t there before. Anticipation crackles under Charlie’s skin like miniature fireworks. Dan still won’t stop looking at him, but now Charlie looks back, an unspoken something tethering the two of them together. 

For the entirety of the show, Charlie runs on autopilot. He plays his guitar and sings his harmonies while Dan grins at him under the strobe lights and sings half of the lyrics right to him: _Put me in my place, put me in my place._

Charlie feels like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff and staring down into the abyss. He knows the fall will hurt—it might even kill him—but he craves the wind in his face, the pump of blood in his veins, as he tumbles down, down, down. He craves it so much that he’s starting to forget the consequences waiting for him at the bottom.

Dan texts him not even minutes after they’ve walked offstage. _Come to mine later?_

Charlie’s reply is automatic: _Sure._

He’s a masochist, apparently. That’s why he goes to Dan’s room that night. That’s why he knocks on the door, and that’s why he doesn’t protest when Dan immediately drags him over the threshold and kisses him. 

Time seems to slow down. Dan tastes—well, he tastes like Dan, warm and slick and a little minty. Charlie lets it happen. He lets Dan devour his mouth right there in the entryway, lets him lick along the line of his teeth and ruck his t-shirt up with both hands until they’re both panting for breath.

“Bed’s right there,” Charlie manages to say. 

His voice sounds absolutely wrecked to his own ears, but how could it not be with Dan’s fingers stretching open the collar of his shirt, mouth a hot brand against his collarbone?

Dan takes the hint, pulling away long enough for the two of them to stumble backwards toward the bed. They pause at the foot of it to yank their respective shirts over their heads. Charlie’s a little over-eager, so he ends up getting tangled in his, the fabric knotting around his head and his arms stuck halfway out of the sleeves.

“Christ,” Dan says breathlessly, amusement evident in his voice. “C’mere.”

He pulls Charlie toward him with a firm hand on his wrist, yanking at the offending shirt until it finally slides off his head. Charlie sways a little in its absence. When he recovers, Dan is watching him, the corners of his mouth twitching. They stand there looking at each other for a long moment, then bust up laughing at almost precisely the same time, the simmering tension between them broken.

“You’re an idiot,” Dan says.

“Yeah,” Charlie agrees. 

Their laughter eventually trickles off into nothing. Charlie takes the silence as an opportunity to close the small bit of space between them until they’re pressed together, chest to chest. Both of Dan’s shoulders are covered in a smattering of freckles; if Charlie had the time, he’d count every single one of them. 

He runs his fingers up Dan’s bare side instead, feeling out the jut of his hip and the points of his ribs. A whole-body shudder runs through Dan at the touch. He reaches out to cup both hands around the back of Charlie’s neck, and this time when they kiss, there’s no hurry. Dan’s fingers are gentle against Charlie’s nape, and his movements are languid, purposeful. Each slide of their lips together steals the breath from Charlie’s lungs. 

They stay like that, just kissing, for what feels like ages. Charlie doesn’t know what to make of it. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, the only other sound in the room coming from the wet drag of their mouths against each other.

When Dan’s hand finally falls to Charlie’s flies a few minutes later, Charlie stops him, folding his hand over Dan’s own. 

Dan’s fingers flex beneath his. “You alright?”

Charlie nods, although he isn’t sure he means it. Everything about this night feels upside down. Backwards. It feels—fuck, it feels intimate. Kissing like they’ve got nowhere else to be, Dan cradling Charlie’s head like he’s something precious, something to be protected. It’s messing with Charlie’s brain, making him reckless.

“Will you fuck me?” he asks.

Dan goes completely still against him. “You—what?”

Charlie rests his forehead against Dan’s cheek and closes his eyes. He squeezes Dan’s fingers where they rest beneath his own. 

“Don’t make me ask again,” he pleads.

A few quiet seconds tick by before Charlie feels Dan exhale against his temple.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he croaks. “Are you s—”

Charlie silences him with a kiss. If he thinks too hard about this—if he lets either of them think too hard about this—he’ll realize what a truly disastrous idea it is, and that just. Won’t do.

He catches Dan’s bottom lip between his teeth and uses his grip on Dan’s hand to help him undo the button on his own trousers, and then they’re both moving with a renewed sense of urgency, stripping out of their remaining clothes and falling onto the bed still fused at the mouth. Dan ends up on top, pressing Charlie down into the mountain of white pillows (posh fucking hotels, Charlie thinks). He props his forearms on either side of Charlie’s head and kisses Charlie’s mouth, his jaw, his ear, anywhere he can reach. 

When he lowers the full weight of his body onto Charlie’s and slots their hips together, Charlie has to bite down on the guttural sound that threatens to escape him. They’ve never done this, never hooked up without at least one—usually multiple—layers of clothing between them. Charlie could almost come from this alone, Dan’s sweat-slicked chest pinning him in place and cock hot against his own.

“D’you have—” Charlie asks, breathless.

“Yeah, yeah, hang on.”

Dan kisses him once, quickly, on the mouth, before disappearing. Charlie lays there in the middle of the bed, chest heaving with the force of his breath. He feels raw, exposed, without Dan’s body covering his own. He closes his eyes for a moment just so he doesn’t have to think about it.

When he opens them again, Dan is back, lube and condoms in hand. He deposits them on the bed next to Charlie’s hip and crawls on top of him, leaning down to kiss him.

“Hey,” he says quietly. He cups Charlie’s cheek, then slides his fingers into his hair, brushing it away from his forehead. “Alright?”

Charlie swallows past the sudden lump in his throat. If Dan asks him that one more time, he might do something crazy, like combust. Or cry. Or both.

Instead of answering, he reaches for the bottle of lube and presses it into Dan’s free hand. 

“Come on,” he says.

He doesn’t need to say it twice. 

Dan pours a generous amount of lube over his fingers and settles himself between Charlie’s thighs to get to work opening him up. The first brush of his finger is strange, bordering on uncomfortable. Charlie’s only done this a couple of times before, and it shows in the way his muscles tense and his stomach turns at the initial intrusion. Dan is patient, though, and he stretches Charlie open slowly, thoroughly, adding a second and then a third finger until the discomfort has turned to pleasure and Charlie is breathless and writhing beneath him.

He watches Dan roll on the condom and slick up his cock in a daze. Dan catches him staring, and Charlie must look as unhinged as he feels, because Dan is suddenly right there, thumbing away the sweat from his brow.

“It’s easier if you turn over.”

“No,” Charlie whispers. “I know, but—I—”

Dan cuts off his stammering. 

“Okay,” he says, the word breathy, like he can’t quite believe this happening. “Okay.”

Dan settles on top of Charlie and lines up his hips. Charlie can see his arms trembling from holding himself up, but then he promptly forgets all about it when Dan starts to push into him.

It’s like being ripped clean in two. Dan goes slow, so slow, but the intrusion still burns like nothing else. Charlie squeezes his eyes shut and tries desperately not to make a sound, wishing for a fraction of a moment that he had turned over, anything to make it hurt less.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dan gasps. He pants open-mouthed against Charlie’s cheek, lips catching on the stubble there. “Are you—you alright?”

Charlie grits his teeth and doesn’t say anything. Dan is fully seated inside of him now, but he doesn’t move an inch, giving Charlie time to adjust to the sensation.

“Charlie,” Dan whispers a minute or so later, not quite a question.

When Charlie finally has his voice back, he turns his head toward Dan’s, their noses bumping. “Yeah. Yeah, you can—you can move.”

Dan starts off easy, a few shallow thrusts that punch the air from Charlie’s lungs. Then he finds that spot inside of Charlie, the one that makes his vision explode into a shower of sparks, and Charlie moans so loudly that he almost doesn’t realize, for a second, that the noise has come from him. He wraps his legs around Dan’s waist and holds on, every thrust of Dan’s hips melting his brain a little bit more.

And Dan, he’s like—like a Greek god, a perfect marble statue, engulfing Charlie in his heat as he fucks into him. He fastens his mouth to the delicate skin of Charlie’s throat and sucks hard enough that there’ll most definitely be a mark there tomorrow. Charlie doesn’t care. He likes it, even, the thought of Dan claiming him making every nerve ending in his body sing.

“Dan,” he groans. “Dan, I’m—”

“I’ve got you.” Dan moves his lips to Charlie’s cheek and reaches down between them to wrap his fingers around Charlie’s cock. “Come on, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

He repeats the words like a mantra. It’s too much—Dan’s voice in his ear, Dan’s hand on him, Dan’s cock inside of him, thrusting hard enough now that Charlie slips a little on the bedsheets with each push-and-pull. 

Before Charlie knows it, he’s coming, every single one of his limbs seizing up as he spills all over his stomach. Dan fucks him through it until he’s practically a puddle on the mattress. Then, keeping himself propped up with one hand, Dan removes the other from Charlie’s cock to grasp his wrist instead. He twines their fingers together and pushes Charlie’s hand up beside his head, squeezing tight enough that Charlie gasps.

“Charlie.” Dan drops his forehead against Charlie’s own, his breath exhaling hot and damp over Charlie’s face. “Fuck—”

He comes with a low moan, his hips stilling and his arm finally giving out so that his full weight drops onto Charlie’s chest. Charlie can hardly breathe, but in the best way possible. He runs his free hand over Dan’s back until he finally seems to come back to himself, reaching down to where their bodies are still joined and pulling out.

Charlie can’t help the quiet sound he makes at the movement, his body suddenly hollow, empty. Dan squeezes his fingers in reassurance before letting go and getting up to toss the condom. Without Dan’s hand wrapped around his own, Charlie feels loose and untethered. He flexes his stiff fingers and shifts experimentally on the bed, his backside aching in protest.

Dan returns a moment later with a wet flannel and takes his time cleaning the come off Charlie’s stomach. Charlie watches through half-lidded eyes, the gentle touch making something ache in his chest.

“Thanks,” he says, once Dan is done. 

He should get up. He should go back to his own room, rinse Dan’s scent off of him, and forget this ever happened. But then Dan climbs back into bed and pulls Charlie to him, tucking their still-naked bodies together so that they’re spooning, and every rational thought flies right out of Charlie’s brain.

“Don’t wanna sleep in the wet spot, do you?” Dan whispers.

Charlie might hum some sort of response; he isn’t sure. All he knows is that he’s officially jumped off the cliff, and whatever’s waiting for him at the bottom—well, he’ll face it in the morning.

*

Charlie wakes up alone in the too-big hotel bed. The sheets beside him are still warm, though, and when he rolls over, he finds the sliding door open and Dan out on the balcony. He’s thrown on a loose pair of joggers and a wrinkled t-shirt, and his hair is an absolute mess, half of it matted down to the side of his head while the other half stands straight up like it’s been electrocuted. He’s a disaster, and Charlie can’t stop looking at him.

Dan turns back toward the door like he can feel Charlie’s eyes on him. His smile makes Charlie’s stomach hurt. 

“Morning,” he says.

“Hey,” Charlie says back. He sits up in bed, body aching as he does so, and scrubs a hand over his face. “Been up long?”

“You know me.”

“So that’s a yes.”

Dan shrugs, but he’s still smiling, so Charlie smiles back. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” Charlie says. “But—good.”

Dan drifts through the open door and takes a seat on the edge of the bed, folding one leg up so that his knee brushes Charlie’s through the blankets. He reaches across the space between them and touches his fingertips to the tender bruise on Charlie’s neck. The faint contact makes Charlie’s breath hitch.

“Sorry,” Dan says, tracing the outline of the mark with his thumb. “Maybe I really am a vampire.”

“I don’t mind it,” Charlie admits.

Dan blinks at him, startled. Charlie’s ears heat up, and he looks down at his lap, Dan’s fingers falling away from his throat.

“D’you—” Charlie says a moment later, clearing his throat. “Do you have some clothes I could borrow? Mine are sort of gross. From the show last night, I mean.”

“Ah, yeah.”

Dan rises to his feet and walks over to his open suitcase to fetch something clean. While his back is turned, Charlie climbs out of bed and pulls on his pants from the day before. He’s just finished when Dan turns back around, shirt and trackies in hand. 

“They’re probably a bit big—” 

Dan pauses upon seeing him out of bed, his eyes flicking down to Charlie’s bare chest, to his feet, and then back up again. He recovers quickly, coughing a little and pushing the clean clothes into Charlie’s hands. 

“You can just—roll them or something, I guess.”

“Thanks.”

Dan turns away again to give Charlie some semblance of privacy, which seems a bit trivial now that they’ve both seen each other naked, but what the fuck ever. Charlie pulls the shirt over his head and tugs the trackies up over his hips. Sure enough, they’re a tad too long in the legs, so Charlie cuffs them twice before deciding to call it good.

“I’m decent,” he says, jokingly.

“Don’t ever say I wasn’t a gentleman,” Dan tells him. This time when he looks Charlie up and down, his eyes go soft—there’s no other way to describe it. It knocks Charlie off balance.

“Well,” Charlie starts. “I should—I guess I should go.” 

“Or,” Dan cuts in, running a hand through his hair, “we could—do you wanna get breakfast?”

“Oh,” Charlie says. “Yeah, I—sure.”

“Cool,” Dan says. 

He seems relieved, like he thought Charlie would say no, which is just the biggest load of bollocks ever. If Charlie knew how to say no to Dan, he would have started doing so ages ago, and then he could have most likely avoided his current predicament of having—fuck. 

Of having...feelings. For his mate. His bandmate.

Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Charlie’s got a Thing for Dan. A Thing that goes far beyond jerking him off backstage and blowing him behind camping trailers. A Thing that makes him want to tear his heart straight out of his chest and hand it over on a silver platter and say, I’m here. I’m right here. Please, please, please.

He really is a fucking idiot, isn’t he?

*

They’ve got another show that night—of course they do—which means they’re back on the tour bus shortly after breakfast. Dan naps for most of the drive, his head in Charlie’s lap and legs stretched across the sofa in the lounge. Charlie isn’t prepared for the casual intimacy of it. He isn’t prepared for it at all. 

A volcano of emotion is bubbling inside of him, threatening to blow at any moment. For hours, he’s afraid to move—afraid to even breathe—for fear that he’ll shatter this new closeness between them. Things with Dan have been so fragile, so turbulent over the past few months. One misstep will send him running—Charlie’s near certain of it. One misstep, and Dan will go running back to Kyle, and it’ll be like none of this happened at all.

And that’s the real issue, here.

Kyle. 

He’s always there, lurking in the back of Charlie’s mind. He’s the reason Dan ever slipped into Charlie’s bed in the first place, and Charlie can’t fucking forget that. No matter how many times Dan smiles at him, or kisses him, or jokes with him onstage, Charlie still feels like a stand-in, a replacement for the person Dan’s wanted all this time. 

He wants to believe that something has changed. That maybe this all means something to Dan, too. Sometimes, like right now, he almost _does_ start to believe it, with Dan waking from his nap and immediately smiling up at him like he can’t believe Charlie’s still there. 

He turns and presses his face into Charlie’s stomach. Fuck it, Charlie decides, sliding his fingers into Dan’s hair the way he’s been wanting to for hours now.

“Are we there yet?” Dan asks, his voice muffled.

“Almost.”

Dan hums and doesn’t say anything else. His hair is soft to the touch and ruffled from sleep, and Charlie can feel each puff of his breath against his t-shirt. He wants to live inside this moment forever.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Dan says. “Thought that was my job.”

“Sorry.”

Dan rolls so that he’s looking upwards again, his eyes still hazy with sleep as they meet Charlie’s. “S’alright. What is it?”

Charlie pushes a particularly unruly chunk of Dan’s hair away from his forehead. _I think I like you,_ the gesture is supposed to say. Or, better yet— _no,_ _I know I like you. But I think I also—I might—_

“Aw, sleeping beauty’s awake,” Will says, emerging from the bunks.

“Sod off,” Dan says.

He flips Will the bird and moves to sit up, and Charlie’s hand falls back to his side, a knot of unspoken feelings caught in his throat.

“What’s with all the yelling,” Kyle complains, popping up behind Will’s shoulder.

“Just making sure your hungover arse is still functioning,” says Will.

“It is. Barely.”

Kyle slips past Will and wanders over to the kitchenette, ruffling Dan’s hair as he goes. Dan laughs and kicks a foot out in response, trying to trip him. Watching them interact makes something sour take up residence inside of Charlie’s mouth. 

“Charlo, you there?”

Will snaps his fingers in front of his face. Charlie blinks and nods, trying to shake the green from his vision.

“Where’s Woody?” he asks.

“Talking to Chrissy, I think,” says Kyle, shoving his mouth full of some crisps he’s unearthed from the pantry. “They’re so cute, it’s disgusting.”

“Oi, speaking of,” Will says. He squints and points a finger in Charlie’s direction. “Is that a hickey?”

Well, shit.

“Uh,” Charlie starts.

“It is. Wow.” Will lets out a little whistle. “Good for you, mate.”

Charlie’s head is spinning. He darts a look sideways to find Dan already watching him, his mouth curved up into a secretive little smile that makes Charlie’s body temperature ratchet up ten degrees. He flushes and forces himself to look away.

“It’s not a big deal,” he says.

Will shakes his head and laughs before turning around to presumably drag Woody out of his bunk. Kyle, meanwhile, flicks his eyes from Charlie over to Dan and taps his fingers thoughtfully against the counter, rings gleaming. Charlie gets the sense that he wants to say something else, but he keeps quiet and turns his attention back to his bag of crisps, effectively signaling an end to the conversation.

*

A couple of hours later, Charlie’s in the green room eating some dinner before the show. He’s not totally sure where the others have all fucked off to, but that isn’t surprising—they all like to spread out whenever they aren’t restrained by the cramped quarters of the bus. Usually it’s a blessing to have some alone time with his thoughts, but lately, Charlie’s brain has been a warzone, and all he wants to do is escape it, which is difficult to do when there’s no one around to distract him.

He’s typing out a half-arsed tweet about being excited for the show when Kyle walks in carrying a plate piled high with food from catering. Their eyes meet, and Kyle makes a big show of scanning the otherwise empty room for a seat, his eyebrows set into a thick line.

“Well, guess I have to sit with you,” he says around a dramatic sigh, gesturing at the chair across from Charlie. “D’you mind?”

“Knock yourself out.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes. Charlie isn’t dumb, though. He can tell Kyle has something to say, so he waits, his stomach somersaulting in anticipation. In a way, he’s been expecting this ever since their unfinished conversation on the bus. 

Kyle’s normally an open book, but this time around he’s infuriatingly hard to read as he puts his fork down and looks at Charlie from across the table.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Yeah,” Charlie says.

Kyle twists one of his rings around with the fingers of his opposite hand. “Was it Dan?”

“What?”

“The hickey. It was him, right?”

The question rings in Charlie’s ears like the aftermath of an explosion. He stares at Kyle, and Kyle stares back, his expression still inscrutable.

“You were wearing his clothes this morning. I’m not stupid,” Kyle continues.

Charlie’s first instinct is to lie, but when he opens his mouth, no sound comes out. He shuts it again, guilty, and averts his eyes. “Do you even need me to answer, then?”

For a long moment, Kyle is silent. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he eventually asks.

No, it’s a fucking terrible idea, but Charlie is a glutton for punishment. 

“It’s really none of your business, mate,” he says aloud.

“If it’s gonna fuck up the band—”

“‘Fuck up the band?’” Charlie echoes. “Christ. It’s—it’s not like that. We’re just shagging, it’s not—it doesn’t mean anything.”

Kyle presses his mouth into a thin line. “You sure about that?” 

Charlie doesn’t answer. Can’t answer. If he does, everything will come spilling out, and he won’t be able to pretend anymore that it doesn’t matter to him—that Dan doesn’t matter to him. Because he does. He matters so fucking much that every thought of him makes Charlie’s hands shake and his chest ache and his brain spiral out of control. 

But Dan doesn’t feel the same. He probably never will. And Charlie’s a terrible fucking person, apparently, because the next words out of his mouth are a flaming, cataclysmic trainwreck. 

“He’s in love with you.”

Kyle reels back in his seat like he’s been struck. “What?”

Charlie swallows. “Dan—he’s in love with you. Has been forever. That’s why he and I—that’s why it doesn’t mean anything.”

Kyle looks gobsmacked. His mouth keeps opening and closing as though he’s trying to form words, but has no idea what to say. 

“What the fuck,” he finally mutters. “I’m—I didn’t know.”

“Yeah.”

Kyle closes his eyes and rubs both hands over his face, his shoulders slouching like they’ve got the weight of the whole world pressing down on them. When he opens his eyes again, they’re wide and wrung out with exhaustion. 

“I don’t know what to say,” he says. 

Charlie wants to be mad at him. God, he wants—he wants to be furious, to fucking hate him, to call bullshit and storm out of the room. But he doesn’t. None of this is Kyle’s fault. It’s on Charlie, and Charlie alone, for allowing himself to get into this so deep—for allowing himself to get into this in the first place, when he had an inkling from the very beginning about how it would end.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Charlie tells him. “At least now—well, now you know.”

He tries on a weak smile that he doesn’t feel. Kyle just keeps fucking looking at him, his expression almost pitying, now, and Charlie can’t. He just can’t. He doesn’t want Kyle’s pity, so he abandons his food and gets up from the table, his footsteps echoing too loudly as he flees the room.

*

The show is fine, even if Charlie is a wreck the entire time. At one point, Dan shoots him a questioning glance, but Charlie ignores it. Thank fucking god for muscle memory—it’s the only thing that gets him through. He doesn’t recall playing a single note; one second, he’s in an arena, and the next he’s in his hotel room, wrapped in an oversized comforter and cursing himself for being such a fucking dickhead.

They’re playing a small, intimate gig for a local radio station the next morning. Charlie doesn’t know how he’s going to survive it—he’s practically a walking zombie. He hasn’t slept at all, just laid awake all night long, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the occasional thud of footsteps outside in the hallway.

He’s the last one out to the van that’s supposed to take them across town to the studio. The only open seat is in Dan’s row, because of course it is. Charlie climbs in and doesn’t say a word to anyone, just buckles his seatbelt and pulls his hood up over his head.

Dan takes one look at him and his brow immediately furrows. 

“You look like death,” he says in a low voice.

Charlie snorts. “How kind of you.”

“Sorry. I just—” Dan pauses and catches the sleeve of Charlie’s jumper between his fingers. “Are you alright?”

Charlie can’t meet Dan’s eyes. He’s overly aware of Kyle sitting in front of them, his presence serving as a big, fat reminder that Charlie is, quite possibly, the shittiest person on the planet.

“Fine. Just couldn’t sleep,” he lies.

It’s clear Dan doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t push it. He lets go of Charlie and leans back in his seat, and they don’t speak the rest of the way to the station.

Once they arrive, it’s a mad dash to get everything ready. Charlie takes his place in the corner and focuses on tuning his guitar, not on Dan and Kyle, whose synths have been placed side by side up front. He isn’t watching as they brush shoulders and point out notes to one another, and he definitely isn’t watching Kyle watch Dan with a considering look on his face that was never there before.

The walls of the studio are closing in on him. Charlie wants—he needs—he has to get out. They’ve only got ten minutes until they go on air, but he doesn’t give a flying fuck. He turns to Woody and mutters that he’s going to the toilet, then books it out of there, his legs carrying him down the hall and far, far away from all of his problems.

He bursts into the gents, chest heaving, and props himself up with both hands against the sinks. The porcelain is cool and solid against his clammy skin. It grounds him. He takes a deep breath in, then lets it out slowly as he stares down his pale reflection in the mirror. 

This is all just...too much. He’s such an idiot. He’s an idiot, and he’s tired—so fucking tired—and he’s angry with himself for being such a filthy liar. God, what has he gotten himself into? Who knew being in love could turn out to be such a clusterfuck?

“Charlie?”

Dan is standing behind him, concern written all over his features. Charlie wipes the sweat from his brow and turns around to face him. 

“Hey,” he says weakly.

Dan takes a halted step forward. He reaches out, his hand brushing Charlie’s shoulder, and every frantic thought inside of Charlie falls silent at the touch. His relief must be tangible, because Dan is suddenly right there, pulling him in and cupping his face between gentle hands. His thumbs caress the dark circles beneath Charlie’s eyes as though trying to erase them by touch alone.

“What’s going on?” Dan asks.

Charlie closes his eyes. Dan’s breath is warm against his face, and it makes him shiver. He curls his fingers around Dan’s wrists, and they stand like that, Charlie holding onto Dan holding onto him, for so long that Charlie starts to forget where they are. 

“Dan,” he says, opening his eyes again.

Dan blinks behind his glasses. “What is it?” 

Charlie takes a deep breath. “I—I can’t do this anymore.”

The words hang heavy in the air between them. Charlie’s heartbeat pounds in his ears, and Dan just—looks at him, his eyebrows drawing together.

“Do what?” he asks.

“You and me. I can’t—” Charlie releases his hold on Dan’s wrists, and Dan’s hands drop from his face, like Charlie’s grip had been the only thing keeping them there. “I can’t.”

Dan takes a step away from him, almost like a reflex. He presses his mouth into a thin line and looks away, his profile cutting a jagged line against the fluorescent lighting.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “I thought…”

His voice is so soft, Charlie would have probably missed the words if not for the way Dan finally turns back toward him, his face a mask of confusion and—sadness? 

This time, Charlie is the one to turn away. 

“This—it’s not—” The words threaten to choke him. “It isn’t casual anymore. Not for me.”

For a moment, it’s so quiet that Charlie can hear the click of Dan’s throat when he swallows. He knows what he wants Dan to say: _it isn’t casual for me, either._ Reality is a bitter pill to swallow, though, and whatever Dan is actually going to say, it won’t be that. It won’t make things any better. 

So Charlie doesn’t wait for him to speak. Instead, he just says, “I’m sorry.”

He can feel Dan at his side, hovering, like he isn’t quite sure what to do. Charlie stares at the wall and counts his breaths, one two three, one two three, trying to keep them steady.

“Alright,” Dan says.

The word sounds so final, so defeated, that Charlie’s heart withers inside of his chest. This is for the best. He keeps telling himself that, even as Dan leaves the room and each step he takes away from Charlie cuts like a knife. 

*

The last few weeks of the North American tour drift past in a haze. Charlie loses track of the days and the places and the faces, so many faces. Dan hardly looks at him and says even less. The bruise on Charlie’s throat fades, but the memories don’t. 

He chases dreams of Dan’s breathless laughter, Dan’s hands in his hair, Dan licking all of the thoughts straight out of his mouth. Even with what feels like an ocean between them, Dan is all-consuming, and Charlie can’t function. It was supposed to be better, this way, but it isn’t. It really, really isn’t.

Just like Charlie predicted since the very beginning, Dan falls right back into Kyle’s orbit as though he never left it in the first place. At every show they play, his grin is wide and beaming over their shared drum. He falls asleep on Kyle’s shoulder in the bus lounge and spends hours with him in their makeshift recording studio in the back, the two of them brainstorming behind closed doors late into the night. Charlie was never a jealous person before this, but nowadays, he’s steeped in bitterness. It’s fucking unbearable.

And then, somehow, impossibly, it gets worse.

They play their final North American show and take their final bows and Charlie isn’t feeling celebratory at all, not after everything, but he knows he’s got no choice. Almost everyone, band and crew included, are going out, so he dutifully tags along to the overly-posh club they’ve chosen. He gets his hands on a drink and settles on the sofa in the VIP area they’ve got reserved and tries not to look as miserable as he feels.

“What’s up with you,” Will asks him at one point.

Charlie shrugs. “It was a long tour.”

Will looks skeptical, but he’s also a few drinks deep, so he doesn’t press the issue. 

The people around him cycle in and out. Charlie nurses his drink and speaks when spoken to, and he knows he’s being a dick, but he can’t be arsed to try any harder. He’s just...exhausted. And he can’t stop wondering where Dan’s disappeared to, and he fucking hates himself for it. 

He downs the remainder of his drink and gets up for a refill. Getting buzzed isn’t exactly high up on his priority list right now, but at least it’s something to do. A distraction. 

The club is packed with people. Every thud of the bass reverberates through Charlie’s whole body, and every brush of skin against his makes his lungs start to tighten. He keeps his head down and pushes through the crowd until he finally makes it to the bar, leaning heavily against it as he assesses the room.

The world morphs into a surrealist painting:

Colored lights blazing. Walls shaking with the force of the music. Bodies crushed together. Smoke overhead, turning strange faces in the crowd cloudy and indistinct. 

The top of Kyle’s head floating above it all, drifting through the sea of people. And there—Dan. Just a flash of him, a sudden parting of the waves, not long at all, but long enough. Dan’s hands on Kyle’s waist. Kyle’s rings catching the strobe lights where they rest against Dan’s shoulder. Dan surging upwards to kiss him.

A wave of nausea hits Charlie with so much force, he almost doubles over. The bartop is sturdy against his back, though, and he clings to it like a lifeline. The crowd shifts again, shutting Dan and Kyle out from his line of vision, but it’s almost worse that way. Knowing without even having to see it. Some primal instinct screaming inside of him: Stupid, stupid, stupid. You always knew how this was going to end. You knew.

And this is how it ends: Charlie, in the corner of the frame. A background fixture. Forgotten. He slips out the front door of the club and goes back to his hotel room, alone.

*

Back in London, things are exactly as Charlie left them. It feels—wrong. That the ground beneath his feet could have shifted so monumentally, so completely, over the past few months, without the rest of the world having felt a single thing. It’s like he’s traveled back in time to before tour, to before that night when Dan drunkenly blew him in a hotel room in Russia and everything spiralled so far out of his control.

Festival season is right around the corner, but Charlie doesn’t think about it—can’t think about it. Instead, for one short week, he throws himself into his own recording, spitting out half-cooked lyrics and melodies late into the night. 

He doesn’t sleep much. Whenever he does, the memory of Dan and Kyle attached at the mouth plays out like an old film reel against the backs of his eyelids. It almost feels like something his brain has conjured up, but the ache it sparks in him is too raw, too real, for the image not to be as well.

He doesn’t know what to do. It sounds fucking pathetic, but he just doesn’t know if he can handle going back on tour. Those last few weeks in the States were so awful, so draining, and Charlie can’t do that again. He isn’t sure he can handle being in the same room as Dan and Kyle, knowing what he knows now. Just the thought of it has him dying a bit inside.

Yeah, it’s selfish of him, but what’s new?

*

In the end, he caves and shows up for the final rehearsal before the Streets of London gig. He loves all of this too much—the music, the lights, the thousands of screaming voices every night. He can’t give it up, won’t let himself give it up, not for someone else. He’s better than that. He has to be.

Woody’s never looked more relieved to see him. 

“Oh, thank Christ,” he says. “We thought maybe you’d died.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Charlie says, forcing a smile. 

Will wanders over and claps him on the shoulder in greeting. Kyle offers him a hesitant wave, while Dan glances across the stage at him like he’s seen a ghost, his eyes wary.

“You alright?” Will asks Charlie.

“Yeah,” he lies. He looks away from Dan and clears his throat. “So, how are the strings sounding?”

“Fucking wicked, mate,” Will says. “Wait ‘till you hear them.”

He’s right—the strings are amazing, and the overall song arrangements are some of the coolest Charlie’s ever played. The show’s going to be a smash, that much is obvious, even if Charlie’s going to want to melt straight into the floor for most of it. 

If the others pick up on his discomfort, they don’t say anything about it. Rehearsal is over within a couple of hours, and Charlie hangs back afterwards, too tired to make small talk with everyone else on their way out the door. He stays until the room has cleared out, then exits out the back of the venue a good fifteen minutes later, head down and hands shoved into his pockets.

The last thing he expects is to find Dan waiting. 

“Hey,” Dan says.

Charlie freezes on the top step, ready to turn back inside like the coward he is, but the door has already clicked shut behind him and sealed him off to his fate.

“...Thought you’d gone,” he says.

Dan shakes his head. Up close like this, he looks—tired. Almost as tired as Charlie feels. 

“Can we talk?” Dan asks.

“Alright.”

“Not—not here.”

“Alright,” Charlie says again.

They catch a car back to Dan’s place. Neither of them speaks on the way there. Charlie trails silently after Dan into his flat, and the irony of it isn’t lost on him, that of all the time they spent together, none of it was ever spent here, in the vulnerable space of Dan’s home.

The flat is small and humble. A few of their platinum records and awards hang from the walls, but aside from that, it looks like anyone could live here, with a throw blanket strewn across the sofa and a couple of plants wilting in their pots in the corner. Charlie stands stock-still in the middle of the living room as he takes it all in, his heart settling somewhere near his throat.

Dan breaks the silence first. “D’you want something to drink?”

“I’m...not sure that’s a good idea,” Charlie says, turning to face him.

Dan nods like that’s the answer he’s expecting. 

“Look,” he says. “I—fuck, I don’t really even know where to start.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Charlie tells him. “It’s fine. We’re fine.” 

“No, we’re not.”

Charlie blinks at him, taken aback. Dan takes a few steps closer, but leaves a gap between them, one large enough that Charlie could still leave if he wants to. He doesn’t move.

“I let you walk away from me in San Francisco. I shouldn’t have,” Dan says. “I was just—confused.”

“About what?” Charlie asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“All of it. You, Kyle...it all got so mixed up in my head. I didn’t mean to—to use you like I did.”

It’s one thing to operate on assumptions, and another thing completely to have those assumptions confirmed out loud. Charlie’s chest aches like someone’s pierced it with a million tiny needles. He swallows past the lump in his throat and looks away.

“I told him. Kyle. About how you felt,” Charlie says. “I was just so…” 

Angry. Jealous. Messed up inside.

“It’s alright,” Dan says. “He and I—we talked about it.”

“Yeah. I saw you. After our last show.”

The memory is seared into Charlie’s brain, but he doesn’t tell Dan that. Everything about this just—hurts. Nothing Dan has said so far has made things any better, and Charlie doesn’t really want to be here anymore. He wants to go home, wallow in his own misery, and then eventually, he’ll move on and get the fuck over it. Someday.

He doesn’t know what his face looks like at the moment, but it must be a perfect replica of how wretched he feels inside, because Dan’s whole expression turns pained.

“That—it wasn’t what you’re thinking,” he says.

“Then what was it?” Charlie asks, exhausted. 

Dan looks down and goes quiet.

“I needed to try first. With him,” he says after a moment, his voice faltering. “I thought it would help untangle some of this...mess inside of me.”

“Did it?”

“You’ve got to understand, the thing with Kyle, I was—I was so used to it. My feelings for him, they’d been around for so long that I—I think I forgot what it was like. To not love him, I mean.”

Charlie’s world slips off its axis. He’s in free fall, suddenly, everything rushing past him so fast he can’t make sense of it. He’s spent so fucking long sitting on his feelings for Dan, fighting himself every single bit of the way to keep them buried, to pretend like they don’t exist. And now Dan is standing in front of him, telling him—what?

Hope simmers in his chest like an unopened fizzy drink. 

“That’s—not really an answer,” he says haltingly.

The lines on Dan’s forehead go soft. His eyes are big and pleading and blue as fucking ever.

“It—wasn’t casual for me, either. Not by the end, anyway. I’m sorry I couldn’t—that I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Charlie’s about to burst apart at the seams. “You have to mean that,” he says. “You can’t just say be saying it because it’s—what I want to hear.”

“I’m not,” Dan tells him. He moves forward until he’s hovering right outside of Charlie’s personal space, his expression earnest. “Charlie, I’m not, I swear.”

Charlie looks at him, at the crinkly skin at the corners of his eyes and the shadow of stubble on his cheeks. Charlie looks at him and realizes: this is it. He has to be brave. If they’re putting it all out there, then he needs Dan to know—he has him. All of him. In every possible way.

“You have to mean it, because I—I’m in love with you,” he says.

Like ripping off a bandage. One and done. Charlie turns the words loose, and the rest of his breath follows, rushing from his lungs at lightning speed. 

It’s the scariest fucking moment of his life. 

And then Dan reaches for his hand. He wraps Charlie’s fingers between his own, looks him straight in the eyes, and says, “I mean it.”

They meet each other halfway. The months of unanswered questions, of worrying and hurting and wishing—all of it seems to fall away. There’s just this: Dan’s hand cradling the back of his skull, his mouth warm and wet against Charlie’s own. It’s only been a few weeks, but Charlie had already started to forget what Dan felt like against him, lithe and steady and all-consuming. He thought he’d never get to feel it again. 

Whatever character the rest of the flat may lack, Dan’s bedroom makes up for it. The walls are covered in posters and photos, and there’s a keyboard propped up in the corner next to his computer, both items surrounded by a nest of speakers and cables. His bed is a massive sea of navy blue in the middle of the room. Dan looks almost ethereal sprawled across it, the white of his smile glinting in the darkness. 

Charlie pauses to look at him, just because he can. 

“Dan,” he says.

Dan’s smile turns shy and affectionate. He leans up on his elbows, and Charlie finally settles above him on the bed, their mouths coming together in an easy kiss. When they separate, Dan stays close, his hands on Charlie’s hips.

“Maybe we should…” Dan starts.

“If you say ‘take it slow,’ I swear to god,” Charlie says.

Dan laughs, and Charlie kisses the sound right out of his mouth. 

“Alright,” Dan whispers against his lips. “Alright.”

They strip each other out of their clothes with an attention and precision that’s never been there before. Charlie splays his palms flat against Dan’s chest and kisses across the constellations of freckles on his shoulders like he’s wanted to do all this time, and Dan melts like wax beneath him. He buries his fingers in Charlie’s hair and lets him bite at his collarbone, his Adam’s apple, his jaw. 

Charlie can feel how hard Dan is against him, but he doesn’t rush it. He can’t take this for granted, this time around. He trails his lips down Dan’s chest, to the sharp cut of his hip, to the inside of his thigh. When he does finally take Dan into his mouth, it’s worth the wait. The alcohol made his memory of doing this at Coachella hazy at best; now, he can memorize all of it. Dan’s fingers in his hair. The heaving sigh of his voice around Charlie’s name. The weight of his cock, warm and heady on Charlie’s tongue.

Charlie pulls off before Dan can finish, leaving his cock hard and leaking against his belly. He ignores the soft sound of protest Dan makes and sits up, settling on top of him with one leg on either side of his thighs. 

“I’m going to ride you,” Charlie tells him.

Dan’s hands dig into the folds of Charlie’s waist. His voice is hardly more than a gust of air as he says, “well, fuck, alright then.”

And Charlie’s also going to memorize this: Dan’s face, lips parted and eyes hazy, hair a dark, tangled halo on his head as he watches Charlie open himself up above him. The angle makes Charlie’s arm cramp, and the lube Dan’s procured from his nightstand is freezing against Charlie’s oversensitive skin, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s doing this for Dan. He’d do anything for Dan, and Dan would do the same for him, and the thought makes Charlie close his eyes and gasp as he stretches himself around his own fingers.

“Christ,” Dan groans. “You’re...you look…”

“Like a wreck?” Charlie jokes breathlessly, pulling his fingers free. 

He opens his eyes again when Dan touches his face. Dan thumbs the sweat away from his brow, the touch sweeping and gentle, and Charlie’s so fucking in love with him, he’s overflowing with it.

“Amazing. You’re amazing,” Dan whispers. “Ready?”

Charlie leans in and kisses him in response. Nothing about this feels hurried or secretive or tenuous, like it’ll break apart if either of them says or does the wrong thing. For the first time, it just feels—solid. Right.

And when Charlie finally sinks down onto Dan’s cock, with Dan’s hands hot and steady against his flank and his mouth uttering soft, nonsensical words of praise at him, the rightness of it all becomes so overwhelming that it’s like Charlie’s heart is beating outside of his body. He starts up a rhythm that builds as he goes, lifting himself up and then down again, and it’s—so much. So good. His thighs tremble and his hands are slick with sweat against Dan’s shoulders. Dan’s voice is shattered, reverent, as he repeats Charlie’s name over and over again like a prayer.

They come within moments of one another, Dan’s hand barely grazing Charlie’s cock before he goes still in Dan’s lap and spills into the space between them. Dan gathers him close with an arm around his back and fucks into him one, two, three more times before he comes, too, his moan vibrating against Charlie’s throat.

Charlie’s thoughts are floating somewhere too far away for him to reach. He sinks into Dan’s chest, loose-limbed, and Dan hugs him close, lips brushing Charlie’s neck. They’re still joined together, but Charlie is too tired to move. He lets Dan gently lower them onto their sides on the mattress so that he can slip his cock free and only sighs a little at the emptiness.

After Dan’s tossed the condom, he crawls back into bed and settles his head on the pillow next to Charlie’s. He’s wrestled the comforter up from the foot of the bed, and now he pulls it over their shoulders, hiding them from the rest of the empty room. 

“Stay the night,” he whispers, tracing his fingertips along Charlie’s side.

“We have a gig tomorrow.”

“Don’t care. Stay the night.” Dan shifts forward on the pillow and presses fleeting kiss against his mouth. “I’ll make you a cuppa in the morning.”

“Didn’t even have supper.”

“So we’ll sleep for a bit, I’ll get up and make you a cheese toastie, we’ll sleep some more, and then I’ll make you a cuppa.”

Charlie smiles. “You drive a hard bargain. Alright, deal.”

*

The hours before Streets of London go something like this:

Dan does make Charlie a cuppa in the morning, and he also sucks him off against the kitchen counter, which is highly unsanitary but really fucking good. Then they eat scrambled eggs on Dan’s sofa, and as Dan’s in the middle of turning on the telly, Charlie admits how much he fucking hates Twin Peaks.

“Don’t tell me that,” Dan says. “Otherwise we’ll have to end things. Right now.”

Charlie pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. 

“So we—there’s something here to...end?”

“I mean, yeah?” Dan looks at him, suddenly hesitant. “If you want. I know we didn’t really—decide anything—”

“No, that’s—it’s good,” Charlie interrupts. “I want that.”

“Cool.” Dan smiles, visibly relieved. “Me too.”

Charlie desperately needs a shower, as well as clean clothes that actually fit him, so he ends up going back to his own flat before the show. Left to its own devices, though, his brain starts running at a million kilometers per hour all over again. Are they going to tell the others? How is he supposed to act? 

By the time he shows up for soundcheck a few hours later, he’s worked himself into a right state. He’s last to arrive again, everyone else already scattered around backstage. Union Chapel doesn’t look like much of a chapel at all, now that it’s all done up for the show—big, strobing lights glint off the stained glass windows, and a cacophony of instrumental sounds echo off the towering ceilings and archways. Charlie takes a deep breath in the face of it all and forces himself to be calm. 

Kyle spots him first, crossing the room toward him in a few long strides. He holds out a plastic water bottle in greeting. 

“Hey. Alright?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says, taking the bottle and accepting it for what it is—a peace offering. “You?”

“Stoked, mate. Charity gigs are always ace.”

Charlie’s not sure what else to say, mostly because he’s not sure what all Kyle knows. He fiddles with the water bottle in his hands for a moment. 

“I think I should—I owe you an apology,” he says finally. “It was shit of me, not letting Dan tell you on his own terms.”

“It was a conversation he and I needed to have.” Kyle shrugs. “And I honestly—I don’t know if he ever would have told me, otherwise.”

“Still. Not my finest moment.”

“We’ve all been there. And look, I just—I wanted to tell you, for real, that there’s nothing between us. I love him to death, but—not in that way. You know?”

A hand settles itself against the back of Charlie’s neck. Without even having to look, he knows it’s Dan, and his presence is instantly reassuring. All of the worry that’s been bubbling inside of Charlie simmers back down into nothing. He cuts his eyes sideways to find Dan smiling at him, a small, quiet thing that makes his heart fall all over itself inside his chest.

“Hiya,” Dan says to both of them, giving Charlie’s neck a squeeze before dropping his hand. “You looked like you were having a much-too-serious chat, so I came over here to break it up.”

“Oi, thanks,” Kyle laughs. He crooks his index finger at the two of them, and there’s no judgement in his voice when he asks, “This a thing now, then?”

Dan shoots a look over at Charlie in silent question. _Your move,_ he’s saying.

Charlie swallows down the nervous lump in his throat and turns back to Kyle. 

“Think so. Yeah,” he says.

Kyle smiles, beaming and genuine. “Good. You idiots deserve each other.”

“Hey,” Dan protests.

Kyle just reaches over and flicks him on the ear, still smiling, before he claims he’s famished and wanders off to get some food. Charlie watches him go, something a lot like relief making itself at home in his stomach. He only looks away when Dan’s fingers graze his elbow to get his attention. 

“You two are good?” Dan asks.

Charlie nods. Dan’s hand is like a furnace against his skin, and Charlie instinctively shifts closer to him, the touch warming him from the inside out.

“Are you?”

“Yeah.” Dan’s voice gets quieter, his next words meant only for the two of them. “We’re telling people, then?”

“Is that alright?”

Dan draws him in until there’s no space left between them. They’re standing in the middle of a crowded room, but it feels like the two of them are alone underwater, everything else muted and far away. Dan lifts his free hand and cups it around the back of Charlie’s neck once more, and then he leans in, his mouth a quick, faint pressure against Charlie’s own.

“Let’s go smash this gig,” he says.

Charlie grins and kisses him one more time. For luck, obviously.


End file.
